A chess set of Taliban fighters featuring Osama bin Laden as the king and a
suicide bomber as the knight is selling hundreds of copies to coalition
troops in Afghanistan.

The Terror Chess sets feature hand-painted Taliban militants with a woman in a burka as the queen.

Ranged against the insurgents are soldiers from a choice of coalition countries including American, Canada and Britain.

In the British set, the king is Tony Blair and the queen is the Queen, while the rook is Big Ben.

In the American set they are replaced by Barack Obama, the Statue of Liberty and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

Jeffrey Train, a 48-year-old former Canadian soldier who designed the figures, said he had sold around 1,500 sets, mainly as souvenirs to troops serving in the 140,000-strong international coalition in Afghanistan.

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Mr Train, who manufactures the resin sets in Manila in the Philippines, said he had the idea while working on Kandahar Airfield in 2006.

He said: "I saw all these soldiers going to buy cheap souvenirs imported from Pakistan. I don't think they realised that the truck drivers were having to pay off the Taliban to get their goods through, so these soldiers were funding their enemies."

He said the sets, which include a board with a map of Afghanistan, were perfect souvenirs and were also educational. They have attracted occasional accusations of poor taste, he said, but most soldiers liked them.

"I have had Americans say 'How can you put a suicide bomber on the same board as the Twin Towers?' and I have said 'Look, this is reality, like it or not'.

"When these guys go back, they can show their kids: 'Look this is where we were, this is what we were doing and this is what we were wearing.'"

The £150 sets are available at three major military airfields in Afghanistan and on the internet.